We’ve heard pretty much all there is to hear about Second Life™ in the press, I think. If the RL press it to be believed the average Second Lifer never leaves their parent’s basement, lives off home delivered pizza, is a closet nyphomomaniac, might one day hunt you down in real life and attempt to kill you and probably smells bad as they never leave their computer long enough to shower.
/me sniffs self.
No, I’m ok!
But anyway, of course us ‘insiders,’ the members of this community who really understand its value and potential know differently about its members. But I bet not many of us knew this…
Apparently, creating a Second Life can encourage people to get fitter and healthier. Now that’s a new one. According to this article researchers at RTI international think that having a thin and athletic avatar will encourage our handlers to go out and get physically fit.
I’m sceptical. Surely if the same science could be applied in every case, the furries should be trying to find a home in the zoo, the Nekos should be discussing ear and tail enhancing surgery with their doctors. And what about the guys playing girls and vice versa. By the same concept would a male with a female avatar feel encouraged to go out and, well… become a woman?
And then, after asking myself these questions, I read the article properly. RTI conducted this ‘research’ in something of a bizarre manner. First of all they only interviewed 29 Second Life residents. 29?!?! There are 19 million registered users and around 80000 on at any one time. They saw a fair and fit sample as 29 of them? They ionterviews ‘half’ of the particpants using an obese avatar interviewer and half using a thin one (I want to know what process they used to split the 29th avatar in half). To quote from the article,
“The study found that participants interviewed by the thin avatar were more likely to report that their own avatar shape was thin than those interviewed by the obese avatar. The average body mass index (BMI) reported by participants was also higher when interviewed by the obese avatar than was reported by those interviewed by the thin avatar.
The researchers also found that almost three-fourths of respondents interviewed by a thin avatar described their avatar shape as thin, while only one-third of respondents interviewed by a heavy avatar described their avatar shape as thin.”
So in essence what they are saying is that people with higher weight feel more comfortable discussing it with someone of equal or greater weight than they do with someone smaller. I concur with that, as it happens. But surely that is nothing new? They could have walked into any weight loss club or even High School in the world and found that out. I fail to see how a thin avatar, though would encourage its handler to go and get physically fit.
My avie has a perfectly toned torso and pretty boy hair. Would I go out to look like that in RL? That hair? No way. I’d be laughed out of the pub.
Oh what a load of bollocks.
